Students at Bishop Union High School in California worked with NASA scientists to launch the chicken, dubbed "Camilla," to 120,000 ft. into space to study the effects of solar radiation on life and promote space weather discussion. Camilla is also the mascot of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, and has her own Twitter and Facebook.

Watch Camilla's flight above.

The students are members of Bishop Union High's "Earth to Sky" group. Team member Rachel Molina, 17 years old, called Camilla's launch a "reconnaissance flight."

During the two and a half hour flight, Camilla spent approximately 90 minutes in the stratosphere where temperatures (-40 to -60 C) and air pressures (1% sea level) are akin to those on the planet Mars. The balloon popped, as planned, at an altitude of about 40 km and Camilla parachuted safely back to Earth. The entire payload was recovered intact from a landing site in the Inyo Mountains.

The payload, a modified department store lunchbox, carried four cameras, a cryogenic thermometer, and two GPS trackers. Seven insects and two dozen sunflower seeds also rode along to test their response to near-space travel. The seeds were a variety known to gardeners as "Sunspot" (Helianthus annuus).

One week later, on March 10th, the storm was underway, and the students repeated the experiment.

A group of fifth grade students assisting the Bishop teens with the project are now planting those sunflower seeds to see if the radiated seeds produce flowers different from those that have not been exposed. Camilla's radiation badges have also been sent to a lab for analysis.

A focus on science and math education comes as the U.S. is becoming increasingly concerned over learning among the country's youth in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). International testing has shown that American students fall behind foreign counterparts in math and science performance, and a 2009 study showed that U.S. students ranked 25th among 34 countries in those areas -- behind nations like China, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Finland.